Not sure about everyone else here (or where you all hail from), but here in New Zealand, one of the requirements for the DBT program is "emotional dysregulation"... So, apparently I have both emotional dysregulation AND borderline lol!Who would've guessed !

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I live in the USA and here it goes like this, any woman who gets hospitalized for any mental problem, no matter what it is, gets diagnosed as borderline simply for being a mentally ill woman. They all get diagnosed borderline even if they are in their early teens, it's only after weeks or months of therapy or examination that they may actually get treatment or medication for something else. It seems like an waste basket category that applies to anyone with mental problems, as long as they are female. It's so confusing and it makes no sense to me.

AJ - That originated, probably, from the previous diagnosis of Hysteria. It was a diagnosis given to any mentally ill woman. It morphed into the diagnosis of Borderline. They are treated exactly the same.

MMonroe wrote:AJ - That originated, probably, from the previous diagnosis of Hysteria. It was a diagnosis given to any mentally ill woman. It morphed into the diagnosis of Borderline. They are treated exactly the same.

Not... really.

I mean, I totally agree with your supposition that Borderline is deeply intertwined with the historical Hysteria diagnosis, but I would have to seriously question your statement that the way they are/were treated is/was exactly the same.

I think the attitude of clinicians to BPD and Hysteria could draw some pretty conclusive parallels over the centuries, but their treatments distinctly vary.

For example, I have never been subjected to hydrotherapy-induced hysterical paroxysm for my 'Hysteria'. Thank Christ.

And, overall, I think the attitudes of clinicians have also slowly morphed, as well. Instead of the problem being vaginal in nature (read: the inherent diseased state of simply being female), they are accepting other causes. While the underlying chauvinism and patriarchy can be said to clearly still be evident, I don't think it is fair to say that the schema of BPD is analogous to the schema of Hysteria in the psychiatric field.

I don't think MMonroe meant Freud's conception of Hysteria, she meant the concept of Hysterical Personality, which has now branched off into both Histrionic and Borderline PDs. Hysteria was the umbrella label for those personalities and now BPD is applied to practically every woman who ever comes in for therapy or goes to the hospital, no matter what issues she has. A lot of them may just have depression, anxiety, bipolar, PTSD, or any number of separate issues but they all get labeled borderline simply for being female. I'm guessing that's the biggest problem with BPD and the DSM V committee now, it's becoming a meaningless category.

ajrocker8 wrote:...and now BPD is applied to practically every woman who ever comes in for therapy or goes to the hospital, no matter what issues she has. A lot of them may just have depression, anxiety, bipolar, PTSD, or any number of separate issues but they all get labeled borderline simply for being female.

AJ,

I know that this isn't a professional or clinical forum, but there is a lot to be said for evidence-based statements. Especially on a mental health board, where distressed individuals go to try and find some meaning within their realities. By no means is this an attack, but where I was coming from in my statement to MMonroe, and now to yourself, was at her seemingly equivocal statement of certainty without proof.

Although we can say with a large degree of certainty that the connections being made in this thread of BPD to Hysteria are plausible on the grounds of correlation, we cannot say for certainty that this is so. No-one can. Neither can you, I should desperately hope, be able to prove that "practically every woman" who goes for therapy gets the label of Borderline.

Saying such things has the ability to misconstrue reality; put it into a lens while, although utterly worthy of exploration, should never be taken as truth.

You're right, it's an exaggeration, but every woman I've ever known who has ever been either in a hospital or in any kind of mental health treatment, they all said that their doctor or therapist called them a borderline. And there is in fact a lot of evidence that it is notoriously overdiagnosed in women, that is a fact.

ajrocker8 wrote:You're right, it's an exaggeration, but every woman I've ever known who has ever been either in a hospital or in any kind of mental health treatment, they all said that their doctor or therapist called them a borderline. And there is in fact a lot of evidence that it is notoriously overdiagnosed in women, that is a fact.

Too tired to argue, but I'll write this quickly and bid you goodnight.

Please show me the evidence that BPD is "notoriously overdiagnosed" in women. There isn't anything that equivocally states that this is truth. I can argue this point because I've done (albeit highly limited, in the sense that I don't have a Masters in the history of psychiatry) a small enough amount of research in this field to know that the evidence for either argument is simply not there.

Yes, BPD is seen a lot in women. Suspiciously so. But sadly, we must also consider, with respect to epistemology, there may be good reason for it. It may be over-diagnosed. But what your statement, and this entire thread, is actually pointing to are some of the oldest (and most heatedly contested) arguments in the field of critical medical anthropology and sociology:

- Is mental illness really on the rise? Or are we just diagnosing it more?

- Are there really differences between the genders? Or is there simply prejudiced patriarchy inherent within the psychiatric field?

So I wonder if your statement perhaps needs to be re-viewed in the lens of those fields of inquiry -- is BPD "notoriously" overdiagnosed in women -- is it simply patriarchy? Or are more women than men simply developing this PD more -- due to biopsychosocial and cultural factors? Are we just diagnosing it less in men, because we are unwilling to label them with a "female" disease? Or none of the above, at all?